Macaws:
Red Shouldered (Hahn's) Macaw
Severe Macaw
Blue And Gold Macaw
Blue Throated Macaw
Military Macaw
Red Fronted Macaw
Scarlet Macaw
Green Winged Macaw
Hyacinth Macaw
After receiving much interest in the stands I use for all my parrot training, I have finally decided to release these on sale to the general public. Originally I designed a simple set of stands for the purpose of teaching Kili to target back and forth between them so that she could learn to fly as I would increase the distance. Since then I have made numerous improvements to the design and have found countless uses for these stands. Just to mention a few:
· Target training · Perch to perch flight training · Recall flight training to your hand · Training parrot tricks such as wave, shake, nod, turn around, wings · Advanced and variable height flight recall · Potty training parrot to poop from stand onto newspaper · Socializing parrots to each other · Place for parrot to hang out and play with toys
They are lightweight and portable so they can easily be moved from place to place. Yet they are heavy enough to be durable and support a small to medium parrot landing on them at speed. Some of mine I keep in a permanent location so the parrots know where they are and can fly there for safety (or toilet). The other stands I move around depending on what I am training. Typically I keep the height a bit below my head but sometimes I raise them for video or special training. If I'd like to sit in a chair, I can bring the training stands down to remain at a convenient height for training.
Parrot training perches eliminate the distraction that colorful play gyms and multi-branched climbing trees can create, keeping your parrot's attention on you for training. Since the two stands are independent, the ways you can line them up are numerous. Set them up parallel to each other to teach the parrot to fly between the two stands. Set the perches up perpendicular to each other to keep two parrots on them but not fight with each other. It is easy to add a newspaper at the base to collect any mess.
I bet a lot of people are wondering whether or not it is difficult to train a flighted parrot (particularly one that was never clipped). Well the good news is that for the most part is is barely even noticeable that a tame hand raised baby parrot isn't clipped at all. Truman will make several large flights per day where he goes back and forth down the room a few times and may fly off or to another place from time to time. For the vast majority of time he is out however, Truman is not flying around all over the place but rather on a perch playing with stuff. The few flights that he does make are pretty harmless and would certainly not be worth clipping him over.
Here is a video that presents some of the realities of trying to train a flight capable parrot. Sometimes things don't go the way you want to. I'd like to share some footage that was taken as part of the wave training but not included to avoid distracting from the wave technique. This is just to illustrate some of the other things that go on when training a not clipped bird.
Sometimes things are not so easy though. For instance in the middle of wave training Truman randomly decided to take a lap around the room and then eventually landed on his cage. He certainly wasn't planning on going there because he flew the other way first but it just happened to make a good landing site when it caught his eye. I try not to reward him for these fly offs by giving it unnecessary attention or treats. Sometimes I will walk over and get him after a brief wait. Other times I will recall him back to me.
Another time during wave training Kili just decided to fly straight at him. Truman took off and Kili followed him in close pursuit. As Truman rounded the far end of the room I called to him and he came back to land on me while Kili found an alternate landing spot. Eventually I called Kili back too but not right away in order to deny her attention for her little stunt.
All in all, keeping a parrot flighted presents many more training opportunities than hindrances. However, it does require extra patience to be able to work with the occasional fly off. You have to accept that you cannot control the parrot and it is free to fly away whenever it wants. Yet with good training and a positive attitude you can teach the parrot to want to be with you and want to train. Ultimately it is far more rewarding to work with a flight capable parrot that cooperates with you because it wants to and not because of a stroke of scissors across its wings.
This article is about how to teach a parrot the wave trick. The trick involves the trainer cuing the parrot to wave by either waving at the parrot or saying wave and then the parrot picks up its foot to wave at the audience. Before you can teach your parrot the wave trick, it must already be familiar with taking treats from your hand and should ideally by clicker/target trained as well. The parrot will understand that you are trying to teach it a behavior much quicker if it has already learned the basics of learning by doing the target trick previously. So if your parrot is not hand tame or does not know the target trick, here is a helpful article so that you can teach that prior to beginning training wave. However, an essential requisite of this trick is that the parrot knows how to step up already.
Training the wave trick believe it or not is quite simple. Any parrot can learn to wave including small parakeets such as budgerigars. The number one training tool required to teach this trick is patience. Some parrots might pick it up in a day and it could take months to teach others. If you practice this trick consistently every day with your parrot, I guarantee you that eventually it will learn it. Also you will need treats, a training perch, and a clicker is optional. I found that a clicker is helpful toward the end of the wave training but mostly a burden in the beginning. I started out by using the clicker the first few tries I did to teach wave to Truman and it was more trouble than it was worth. The clicker can be used once your hands are freed up but best left out of the first portion unless you have someone else to help you.
The actual mechanism for teaching the trick is very simple. You pretend like you are asking the parrot to step up by approaching your extended finger to it and just as it lifts its foot, you retract your finger and reward the bird. This comes as a two step process. The first step is to get the parrot to learn to pick its foot up at the sight of your extended finger and the second step is to teach it to do that when you wave your hand instead. Therefore the first cue that is taught is only temporary until the main cue can be learned. You are going to need to decide which foot you want your parrot to wave with. It has been my preference to teach the parrot to wave with the opposite of its dominant foot. This is because they often lift their dominant foot up to eat so it looks more impressive when they wave with one and then eat with the other rather than going up and down with the same foot twice. Remember to be consistent about training wave only to a single foot or the parrot will get confused.
Start by having your parrot on a perch (ideally a training stand). Have it just below eye level and stand facing the bird. You will need to ask the parrot to step up with the hand that is closest to the foot you have chosen for the parrot to wave with. Truman is left footed so I wanted to teach him to wave his right foot. When I am facing him, it's like a mirror image so I need to use my left hand to get him to pick up his right foot. Therefore my right hand is free to wave at him while I approach him with my left hand. The hand used for lifting the foot is aimed with the pointer finger parallel to the perch upon which the parrot is standing. Do not let the parrot actual step onto your hand but approach the finger as close as necessary to have it lift its foot. As soon as the foot starts coming up, back that finger away just a bit so that it cannot actually grab on and step up. Immediately praise and reward the parrot with a treat. Practice this for a few training sessions.
The next step is to begin to recede the step up cue. In the beginning the parrot is merely responding to step up and trying to do that. It will never learn to wave as long as it is focused on the concept of stepping up. So every so often while practicing the above steps. Hold the outstretched finger further from the parrot and see if it responds. It may be learning quicker than you think but if you keep approaching closely with the finger, you won't get to find out. So try holding the finger six inches away, then fours, two, etc. If it is not responding unless up close, then practice up close a few more times. Eventually test the parrot again in this same fashion. Eventually it will surprise you because it realized what to do. Remember to keep training sessions reasonably short and end on a good note. When you have made some consistent progress, end things while they are good rather than letting your parrot's attention dwindle and frustration build up.
Eventually you'll get to a point where picking the foot up is all the parrot wants to do. It begins anticipating the treat and lifting its foot when you haven't even asked. This is the golden opportunity to get it to learn it on the proper cue. It starts getting in the habit of lifting its foot and getting treats repeatedly. Now one time you just skip the finger cue and just do the waving hand cue and the parrot will pick up its foot anyway from the inertia of repetition built up from prior training sessions. Now finally this becomes a parrot trick. After this point it will just be a matter of practice. There is the possibility of the parrot forgetting again but a quick reminder with the finger cue will get it back to doing the trick properly. I suggest showing the waving hand cue right from the very start and saying "wave" (or whatever you want the verbal cue to be) immediately from the start. This lets the parrot get used to seeing/hearing the proper cue earlier and becoming aware of its simultaneous presence to the outstretched finger cue. In the beginning I hold the treat between my fingers of the hand I wave with so that I can offer the treat as soon as the bird picks its foot up but once the parrot is doing the trick on cue, I put a clicker/treat in the hand I'm not waving with.
I taught Truman to wave in a total of five training sessions. The reason I label them by session rather than day is because some days I did two sessions. So while it took five sessions, they spanned a total of four days. I did a few micro sessions in between to keep his mind on wave but they did not bring forth and progress worth mention. Basically I'd practice whatever stage of wave training I was at at different times of the day on top of normal training. This helps expedite things just a little bit. The first session was mostly dedicated to getting him used to picking his foot up. The second and third session was about him seeing the finger cue for lifting his foot up. The fourth session reduced the importance of the finger cue by holding it progressively further and further away. And then finally by the fifth session it dawned on Truman that he actually has to lift his foot up when he sees the waving hand cue rather than the finger. I am going to continue practicing the wave with him until he is very consistent with the trick and then I won't wait any longer before introducing him to a new trick. I don't want him to get so used to wave that he becomes resistant to learning other tricks.
Here is a video of the actual training sessions where I taught Truman how to wave. The video illustrates the techniques mentioned above for training. It is a bit long but it accurately depicts the progression of learning for the trick. The video is not in actual time. I probably spent closer to 3 hours training Truman and I would estimate that I had performed the trick at least 50 times until he began doing it off of the proper wave cue.
Here are some additional tips for teaching the wave. Don't seek perfection from the very start. In the beginning it is important that the parrot make any positive motion to lift its foot to your outstretched finger on its own. Even if it is lifting it briefly and not very high, that's ok. The important thing is to teach it the motion. Then once it learns the trick and is picking its foot up on cue, you can start rejecting the worst ones and rewarding the best instances. So at first it might be waving for 1/4 of a second so you don't reward the 1/8 second waves but you do the 1/4. Then you start rewarding only 1/2 second, etc. Same things goes for height. At first you reward any motion to pick the foot up even if it's only a tiny bit off the ground. Eventually you start rewarding the best ones of the capability of the parrot at that particular stage in training. A good rule of thumb is to always reward the best 4 out of 5. Don't reward the worst one. Even if the 4 aren't up to your desired standards, it will certainly improve because at least the worst ones are being discarded and the parrot is learning how to favor the better ones. This will take time but it will improve results. Not rewarding too many trials will only discourage the parrot from waving in the first place so be sure to reward the effort as much as possible.
This trick is suitable as a first trick (assuming reasonable tameness and step up) for any parrot including parakeet, cockatiel, lovebird, parrotlet, conure, poicephalus, african grey, amazon, cockatoo, or macaw. This is a wonderful beginner trick that anyone can train their parrot with just a bit of patience. I hope you find this article helpful and wish you luck training your parrot. If you have any questions please use the link below to post them through the parrot forum.
Previously, I had shared a video of holding Kili outside of Truman's cage. I also began doing the reverse which is a bit more challenging because Kili is more likely to be aggressive in defense of her own territory rather than around Truman's cage. In the Truman Recall Training article I mentioned that I started rewarding Kili whenever Truman would come near her area. Now I had taken this a step further and would bring Truman right up next to Kili's cage. Usually this would result in her dashing across the cage, jumping onto the bars, getting really fluffy and big, showing her beak, eyes pinning, and making threatening poses and Truman. I had never seen Kili get this aggressive toward any human but clearly Truman was really really pissing her off
To diminish Kili's aggression toward Truman, I began rewarding her whenever Truman approaches her. I carry Truman up to her cage and before she gets a chance to start getting aggressive, I give her a treat through the bars. Truman just sits on my hand and watches; he doesn't need a reward. Also, I cue Kili to perform tricks which she does with zeal because she is such a show off. I hold Truman but I divert all my attention to her so that she doesn't feel jealous and thinks she is the center of all attention. I had been doing this process for the last few days and here is a video of how this looks:
Initially I planned to quarantine the two parrots for an entire month but I have long given this up as they had both landed on each other's cages when out. Kili has been healthy for two years straight and Truman had good results on all his blood work so I was not too worried about the parrots coming in contact already. At this point, I figured the gradual introduction and interaction would be more beneficial than harmful. There is much that Truman can learn from Kili.
I was trying to make the out of cage introduction to be very informal. I was going to put Truman on a stand at one end of the room and Kili on the other. Both parrots are flighted and I couldn't keep track of both so I quickly gave up on this idea as Kili was flying by and knocking Truman off his perch! I decided to try the time-tested method of training with positive reinforcement instead. I put Truman on his training perch and brought over Kili's training perch and put it a few feet away. I lined the perches in more of an L to make it more difficult for either parrot to fly at the other or land on the other's perch. I adjusted the height to make the perches approximately equal height but below my own eye level.
I had to immediately grab Kili's attention because she looked ready to pounce on Truman. I began cuing her tricks and providing hefty treats to keep her busy eating. After all, she can't bite if her beak is full. I figured I'd target Kili back and forth a bit to continue my behavior modeling attempt from the previous time. This was only the second or third session where I let Truman watch Kili perform the target touch behavior. This time it was up close and personal because both parrots were out of the cage and close together for the first time. Truman watched eagerly and I saw a certain anxiousness in his posture so I figured, heck why not let him try? I had never so much as shown him the target stick up close previously let alone train him the behavior. So I brought the target stick toward Truman for the first time ever and held it about 5 inches away. Knowingly, he made a few steps over to touch the stick like he'd seen Kili do just moments ago!
You may note that I had successfully target trained three parrots previously with relative ease, but never off the first try like this. Even Duke who picked up the target behavior after 5-10 times, wasn't walking over to touch the target stick until some more practice. Quite clearly Truman had learned the behavior to walk to touch the target stick simply by watching Kili. To test whether he understood the behavior by modeling rather than just touching the stick out of curiosity, I purposefully held it far enough that he'd have to walk over to it and surely enough he did. The three other parrots I target trained would only touch the stick if it was within immediate reach prior to learning to walk over to it.
To further test that Truman had actually learned the targeting trick rather than just one lucky shot, I had him do it many more times during this training session and he was consistently touching the stick. His attention varied but when I had his attention, he was very consistent about walking over and reaching to touch the target stick. I took this even a step further and had Kili target fly to my hand be showing her the stick over my hand. Then I had Truman do the same. It took a bit more encouragement but he caught onto this in this same first target training session. He picked up target training and target flying in approximately 20 minutes of training based on modeling when this same skill level would have normally taken several weeks to teach an unfamiliar parrot. Clearly this modeling method has much potential to offer and should make teaching tricks to Truman significantly easier than the first time around when I taught them to Kili with no model to show her what to do.
By keeping both parrots focused on training or eating their treats, I was able to prevent aggression almost completely. There were just two incidents in the half hour they were both out and neither bird came close to getting hurt. Once Kili flew at Truman and another time Truman tried to fly onto Kili's perch. On both occasions the parrots flew off their separate ways. I would fetch Truman but Kili would eventually come back on her own or I would recall her. Overall this was an extremely productive training session and the progress quite valuable. Truman learned a trick and Kili learned that she can earn treats by doing tricks around Truman but not attacking. Here is a video that shows all of this training progress as I videoed the entire training session and then picked out the good bits for you to enjoy.
I had previously written about teaching Truman how to make small flights by luring him from training stand to training stand. Since then, I had about three more days of training flight recall to Truman. He is catching on very quickly so I am not using a target stick or clicker to teach him recall. Why bother if he's learning what I want from him? I will of course apply the clicker for more advanced tricks but when it comes to recall I want to do it with him so much that it becomes automatic and he does it just because. I want flight recall to be the most practiced trick in his repertoire so that is why I am teaching it before anything else.
First I lured Truman from perch to perch. Then I began hiding the treat and just tapping on the perch I wanted him to fly to. I extended the cue to my arm instead of a perch by tapping on my arm. Then I stopped showing the tapping cue and made the cue just extending my arm and calling his name. Thus I developed the basis of a flight recall in less than a week. It certainly does help that Truman loves human attention and is practically begging to be on me, but even without it is still very manageable.
In the meantime, Truman is not very treats oriented so for some recalls I give him a toy rather than food. I almost have to force him to take the food sometimes because he seems to want to fly to me just for the hell of it rather than to get the treat. Of course his recall is nowhere near reliable and he won't come from a long distance, but this is certainly good progress considering how recently we began practicing this. I'm sure I could push him to learn quicker but I don't feel the need as we are bonding in the process and just having fun. Eventually I'll pick up the pace with training but right now he is learning much more about living and the environment than just the trick training.
This same process can be used to train any species of parrot to recall to you. This works especially well with baby parrots that were never clipped. However, it can be used to train a refledged parrot who's wing feathers grew back out. I am certain a Budgerigar, Cockatiel, Sun Conure, Ring Neck Parakeet, Amazon, Eclectus, African Grey, Cockatoo, or Macaw could learn flight recall based on the same techniques. I have experience recall training a Senegal Parrot, Cape Parrot, and Budgerigar and I can tell you that the process was essentially the same with all the parrots because it is based on operant conditioning which all parrots (and even other birds) are capable of. Here is a video from a few recent sessions of flight recall training Truman the Brown-Necked Cape Parrot:
At the end of the video you may have noticed that I gave a treat to both Truman and then Kili following the long recall. The reason is because I had Truman fly close into Kili's territory so I wanted to not only reward Truman for recalling to me, but also Kili for not getting aggressive in her cage. I have been making extensive efforts to maintain peace between the parrots and tomorrow I will post an update about how I am introducing them to each other.
Trained Parrot is a blog about how to train tricks to all parrots and parakeets. Read about how I teach tricks to Truman the Brown Necked Cape Parrot including flight recall, shake, wave, nod, turn around, fetch, wings, and play dead. Learn how you can train tricks to your Parrot, Parrotlet, Parakeet, Lovebird, Cockatiel, Conure, African Grey, Amazon, Cockatoo or Macaw. This blog is better than books or DVDs because the information is real, live, and completely free of charge. If you want to know how to teach your parrot tricks then you will enjoy this free parrot training tutorial.
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